Background. A growing body of Australian research is examining public attitudes towards crime and punishment (punitive attitudes) and consistently finding that the Australian public typically express high punitive attitudes. Punitive attitudes are multifaceted and intricate, necessitating research to understand how various factors contribute to the development of high punitive attitudes.
Methodology. To being understanding these attitudes, this thesis comprises of three empirical studies that draw on original survey data from a sample of the Australian public (N = 520).
Study 1. Study 1 examined the relationships between punitiveness and various factors (demographics, crime salience, perceptions of offenders, sociocultural factors, and racial attitudes) to create the most sophisticated model to predict punitive attitudes in Australia to date. The overall findings suggest that many Australians express some degree of punitive attitudes which are most strongly predicted by internal attribution of crime, perceptions of rising crime rates, a lack of belief in redeemability, geographic location (specifically residing in a rural location), low interpersonal trust and a lack of support for multicultural principles.
Study 2. Study 2 narrowed its scope to focus on the relationship between racial attitudes (racial essentialism and attitudes towards Indigenous Australians) and general punitive attitudes. Further, this study examines specific punitiveness through a vignette experiment where respondents indicate their punishment preferences in a particular case where the offender differs by race (Aboriginal vs Australian). The results indicate that while racial attitudes are associated with punitive attitudes, internal attribution of crime and perceptions of crime accounted for the most variance in punitive attitudes among the Australian public. Moreover, the vignette experiment found no differences between the preferred sentences nor sentence length for a First Nations offender compared to a non-Indigenous offender.
Study 3. Study 3 focused on the relationship between geographic location (rural vs urban) and punitive attitudes and considers what factors may contribute to this observed difference. The findings identified that rural residents expressing significantly stronger punitive attitudes, with fear of crime and a lack of confidence in the criminal justice system accounting for a significant amount of the observed difference.
Conclusions. Broadly, many Australians express some degree of punitiveness. These attitudes are most strongly predicted by rising perceptions crime in the community and perceptions of offenders. The findings also indicate that racial attitudes also play a role in predicting high punitiveness. However, these attitudes do not necessarily translate to preferences for harsh punishment when respondents are presented with a specific case and offender. In fact, more respondents primarily opted for non-custodial sentences in the vignette experiment irrespective of the offender’s race. Additionally, the level of punitiveness differs across rural and urban contexts, with people residing in rural areas being significantly more punitive than people living in urban areas. While there is still much work to do in understanding the mechanisms that foster punitiveness among the public and the implications of these attitudes, this thesis contributed to bridging a number of gaps in the literature where no pre-existing studies have previously examined.